Teaching her way

Published: Sunday, October 28, 2012 at 03:57 PM.

Few people have spent as many days in a classroom as Jean Goodman.

“When I became a teacher, I just loved it,” she said. “I went at it with a lot of tenacity and motivation.”

Goodman is now a high school English teacher at Clover Garden School, a charter school in northern Alamance County that educates students in the elementary, middle and high school grades. Her words and actions make clear that her love of the profession hasn’t weakened.

Goodman has been a teacher since 1984, when she started teaching English and social studies to academically gifted students at Western Middle School. After nearly 15 years there, she taught briefly at Smith Elementary School before moving to Alamance Community College, where she taught teacher re-certification classes. She taught for several years at River Mill Academy, a charter school where she helped put in place programs for gifted students.

By the time she started her full-time career after graduating with a degree from Elon College, now Elon University, in 1983, Goodman had been in classrooms as a teacher assistant for many years. She and her late husband, Bob Goodman, moved to Alamance County in the early 1960s. While they raised four daughters — “only one of them became a teacher” — she worked in local schools and took education classes.

Goodman humorously acknowledges she is advanced in years compared to the average teacher, but won’t specify her exact age.

“They’ve been trying half their lives to find out how out how old I am,” she said about her students, “because I’m old as dirt and I’ve been teaching since the Earth cooled.”

“When I became a teacher, I just loved it,” she said. “I went at it with a lot of tenacity and motivation.”

Goodman is now a high school English teacher at Clover Garden School, a charter school in northern Alamance County that educates students in the elementary, middle and high school grades. Her words and actions make clear that her love of the profession hasn’t weakened.

Goodman has been a teacher since 1984, when she started teaching English and social studies to academically gifted students at Western Middle School. After nearly 15 years there, she taught briefly at Smith Elementary School before moving to Alamance Community College, where she taught teacher re-certification classes. She taught for several years at River Mill Academy, a charter school where she helped put in place programs for gifted students.

By the time she started her full-time career after graduating with a degree from Elon College, now Elon University, in 1983, Goodman had been in classrooms as a teacher assistant for many years. She and her late husband, Bob Goodman, moved to Alamance County in the early 1960s. While they raised four daughters — “only one of them became a teacher” — she worked in local schools and took education classes.

Goodman humorously acknowledges she is advanced in years compared to the average teacher, but won’t specify her exact age.

“They’ve been trying half their lives to find out how out how old I am,” she said about her students, “because I’m old as dirt and I’ve been teaching since the Earth cooled.”

Goodman reports discipline problems among her students are few, if any.

“Otherwise, I wouldn’t be teaching at this age,” she said. “I tell them, ‘You’re all gifts from God, and I’m going to teach you with respect.’”

That results in some strong teacher-student relationships.

“I love her,” sophomore Jordan Miller said. “She’s really outgoing with her students. She likes to have fun with them. She’s the type of teacher than every kid wants. She helps us understand things more clearly.”

Miller credited Goodman with helping her students do well on last year’s end-of-course English tests.

Josh Williamson, another sophomore, said Goodman blends a pleasant personality with the discipline required for an orderly classroom.

“People really respect her,” he said.

GOODMAN TRIES TO EXPLAINthings to her students by using familiar examples.

“In ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ there were quite a few of these,” she said when elaborating on “wraith” as a vocabulary word. “They looked like ghosts with black outfits on.”

She attempts to be encouraging when a student has been struggling.

“I told you you were getting better,” she said to one about his vocabulary test results. “I am so proud of you.”

When possible, she chastises gently and with humor.

“You know what’s going to happen to you, right?” she asks a student who didn’t complete his work on time. “You’re going to be hung from the ceiling by your ears.”

She holds students to high standards, telling them that besides doing well on college-entrance tests, strong skills will be needed in the state’s new system of how students are taught and tested. On Friday, she went over how students could strengthen their answers to a question about a segment from Elie Wiesel’s “Night” in which the author described the hanging of a young prisoner in a concentration camp. She showed students how they could have made better use of examples from the text.

“You’re going to have to learn to think critically,” she said. “You have no idea what’s coming up with the Core Curriculum and your testing.”

BESIDES HER FONDNESSfor her students, Goodman said a strong administration and good teammates at Clover Garden have kept her going strong.

“The environment has a lot to do with it,” she said.

Using resources that have included thousands of dollars in grants, she has led students in community service efforts from the start of her full-time teaching career.

Those include Adopt-A-Grandparent programs in which students have participated in activities with older people at locations such as Twin Lakes Community, The Oaks, Blakey Hall and Hawfields Presbyterian Home. Her current students do things like play Bingo and provide Christmas music at Hawfields.

“I think the most wonderful thing I have done in my teaching career is this community service,” she said.

Mike Wilder can be reached at mwilder@thetimesnews.com or 336-506-3046.